Monday, February 16, 2015

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - February 15, 2015

Almost all of my favorite sports movies have to do with baseball, but my favorite non-baseball sports movie is Miracle, the story of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team that defied all odds to win the gold medal. Before the big game against the Soviet Union, coach Herb Brooks (played by Kurt Russell) tells his team, “This is your time.” As we come to Ash Wednesday this week, Brooks could say the same thing to us. This is our time. In the second reading on Wednesday, we will hear St. Paul say something similar, “Behold, now is a very acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.”

This is our time. For that to be the case, we have to see it in context. Lent does not stand alone. There would be no Lent if it were not for Easter. Easter is the most important time of the year for us, and Lent is our time of making ourselves ready. We are so much starting forty days of Lenten penance as we are starting a ninety day period highlighting our salvation. In the Lenten portion of it, we begin to set aside some of the passing parts of this world, as well as to turn from our sins, so that when Easter comes we will be ready to live as children of God who share in the new life of the Risen Christ.

This is our time, but it is a special time particularly for those who are preparing to enter the Church at Easter. Especially for those who have been taking part in the RCIA for some months now, this is their time in a special way. In fact, in the early Church the season of Lent was designed especially for the Catechumens who were learning about the faith and preparing themselves to be baptized at the Easter Vigil. They were given the forty days before the Easter Triduum for prayer and fasting because Christ took forty days in the desert before beginning his public ministry. Gradually the rest of the faithful began to ask for a similar period of prayer and fasting to prepare for Easter. To this day, though, the Catechumens of the Church get special attention in this season. Please pray for those who will become Catholic at our Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Emma, Jamie and Bob, this is your time.

If this is truly to be our time, we need to take advantage of it. In the movie Miracle, Coach Brooks told the American team that it was their time but that they had to take advantage of it. “You were born to be hockey players,” he tells them, “and you were meant to be here tonight.” We were created to be God’s children, and nothing less will satisfy us. At Easter, we will particularly remember our baptism, even as we see Emma and Jamie being baptized. We were reborn, not to be hockey players but to be the children of God. This is our time if we are ready to make our faith the most important aspect of our lives. We ask God to make this Lent a special time for us to recognize and prepare for the ultimate joy of being God’s people. Behold, now is a very acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

                                                                                                          Father H